


Wabisabi

by oxfordRoulette



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordRoulette/pseuds/oxfordRoulette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, I've got a joke, and it's a good one: a high school softball player, a business woman, and a guy with a weird haircut all walk into a tea ceremony and...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wabisabi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Samizdat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samizdat/gifts).



Chihiro had begged her mother for tea ceremony lessons.

She didn't know why she did so. It wasn't a popular thing to do at her high school nor were her parents very supportive of the hobby, and it was only after promising her father she'd stick with the softball club through senior year that they allowed her to partake in the tradition. She didn't self-examine enough to truly discover the reason behind why, exactly, she wanted to learn the tea culture, but she was aware she had an undeveloped, vague interest in traditional Japanese arts ever since she was ten.

She had this idea it would be relaxing. The ritual of it, wearing some cute kimono, and slowly going through the steps in a pretty tea room. Pouring the water, stirring the powder. The sound of the wooden whisk tapping gently against the side of the bowl. Wabisabi. The art of simplicity, routine, and the enjoyment of imperfection. 

She started to regret it when she met her teacher. She thought he'd be a woman. He turned out to be some college aged kid who did his hair in the kind of messy topknot that would be fashionable in the hip city districts, but here it made him look like a rustic homeless guy. The old school kimono getup didn't help either. He went by Yuu Sokusui, or "Master Yuu" as she had to call him. It felt weird to say that, because he looked more like a "senpai" as opposed to some secret tea master.

He had a weird personality to match the weird position he was in. He spoke in riddles. He gestured slowly, like he was parting water. He acted with a formal sort of friendliness like he and Chihiro were familiar business partners for six years. He didn't smile, unless he was looking at her.

Not that she didn't like him, he was just... odd. He gave her a feeling she couldn't put words to on that very first day of lessons. Something like regret.

He first served her tea, in a shorter ceremony, so she could see what it was like. Chihiro, who had never been graceful in her entire life, was completely outmatched by how elegantly he pushed back the sleeves of his kimono, how he lifted the kettle, how he moved the cup, how he set it down in front of her. She felt like a huge, bumbling klutz compared to him, and she hadn't even started learning yet.

She had to sign a couple legal forms for the tea school before she officially began, and she noticed the characters in his name at the top of the sheet. Yuu Sokusui (饒速水).

Chihiro felt a pang in her heart, although she did not know why. "You have the same three characters as a river I once went to," she said, trying to think. Then, wondering why she would even bring that up, she quickly followed with, "Nigihayami Kohaku-gawa (饒速水琥珀川). I almost drowned in it."

"Do I? Interesting." he said, with something close to a smile. His eyes, although she initially thought they were a dark brown, glinted with the deep green you would find at the bottom of a lake. "I hope you don't drown in me."

She didn't know what to say to his joke.

She took the train to and from lessons. On the way back, she bumped into a business woman with a long face and longer hair. As Chihiro exited the train, her bag nicked the woman, who lowered her cellphone and spat out a "Watch it, kid!" at Chihiro.

The second lesson involved the very first steps-- getting inside the tea room. There was a whole slew of rules she had to learn. Open door, on knees, slide door shut, turn with the balls of your feet. All with the fleeting grace of a feather. Chihiro was remarkably bad at it, and she wasn't even wearing a kimono. She had to put her hair up in her hairband to keep it out of her eyes, and it only helped the smallest amount. But Sokusui was patient and attentive, and helped her learn. By the end of the lesson, she managed to not completely fumble the entry process.

She saw the business woman on the return trip again.

"Hey, kid," she said, sitting down next to Chihiro, with a much politer voice than before. "Sorry for being harsh on you yesterday. I just got out of the hospital and was trying to get all my assets in order. Stressful stuff, you know? My name is Kasahara Rinda. And, uh, have I met you before?"

Chihiro shook her head. The woman looked familiar, but it wasn't enough to throw her for a loop. She might have seen her in a crowd once. "No, I don't think so. I'm Ogino Chihiro."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said the woman, looking at Chihiro as though she were trying to solve a puzzle. The woman's eyes flicked to Chihiro's hairband. It was Chihiro's favorite, all glittery and purple. "I like your hair binder. Where'd you get it?"

Chihiro paused. "You know," she said, trying to think. "I don't remember."

The third lesson was the same, getting in and out of the teahouse. Chihiro became frustrated, Sokusui became stern. His eyes glinted like sunken treasure when he demanded over and over, "Again, no mistakes, from the beginning."

And on that third return trip, Chihiro came to the realization her and Rinda shared the same commute home. They sat next to each other once again.

"I always liked trains," said Rinda, at random. She leaned her arms back against a window. "Had a really good dream about taking a train once. It felt like an escape, freedom, like it got me out of some dark place."

Chihiro thought that would make for a good story.

Chihiro wasn't particularly skillful or talented, but she was determined. The more she failed at her tea ceremony lessons, the more she struggled to keep at it. She never practised alone at home, but she came to her private lessons with her fists clenched and a smile on her face. Sokusui noticed, and pushed her, and she noticed him do so.

She asked him why he decided to choose this path in his life. Sokusui tapped his fingers against the tatami, thinking for a while, and answered with, "Magic."

Chihiro quirked her head. "Huh?"

"Not fireballs or apparition, those things I have long left behind. I'm referring to the ceremony itself. I think that this is its own kind of magic," he said. "The memory of the body, letting it recall, letting it go through the motions while the mind remains detached. The repetition brings brings calmness, sweetness, magic. I always enjoyed a bit of magic. I consider myself an expert practitioner."

Chihiro thought that was silly. When she was little, maybe she would have believed him, but now it was just absurdity. "Would you perform some magic then?" she asked.

He thought for a moment. His eyes flicked to her hair.

"Where'd you get that hairband, Chihiro?"

The question, while it didn't outwardly answer what she asked, made her stomach tie up in knots and her hands clench at her school skirt. She couldn't press the issue, wasn't physically able to, because she was crushed by something resembling nostalgia. She instead continued on with her lesson as though nothing had happened.

She talked to Rinda about it on the train.

"He sounds like a weird kid," Rinda ended up concluding. "Don't try to woo him or write any dumb love letters or anything, he's probably bad news."

Chihiro had never thought about that before. He seemed like someone who _could_ be a dear friend, if the two of them ever talked about something other than tea. She resolved herself to get to know him better. A more difficult task than she had thought, as Sokusui was enigmatic and mysterious. But he was earnest and kind under all that, and Chihiro resolved to draw it all out. 

He brought up the reason why he was teaching tea ceremony lessons only once more, and it was when Chihiro was doing something _right_. She was moving the kettle, cloth in-between her hand and the metal so as not to scald it, when she lapsed in to the autopilot of someone who had done this many times before. In her zoned out state, as she poured the water with perfect precision, as she relaxed into the ritual, she felt as though she were flying.

It might have been the sound of the water which triggered it. Her mind flared up and she imagined herself soaring through the sky, her hair whipping around her eyes and every breath she took cold and damp as though she were high enough to touch the stars themselves. She snapped out of it fairly quickly, though, and managed to spill some of the water.

"Repetition," said Sokusui, with a curious smile. "Is a powerful form of magic."

As she attended lesson after lesson, month after month, she had gotten a lot better at the tea ceremony, but hadn't gotten to know any more about Sokusui. They talked more about hobbies or Chihiro's life as opposed to the things he was involved in outside of the little tea room. She learned he was a good listener, learned he was just as careful in his wording and actions as he was when serving tea. Learned he was sweet and good and a dependable friend. If she was sad or depressed or down, he would be there to let her rant about it. She may not have gotten to know who he was, but she had come to like him very, very much.

He was older than she, so she never asked to hang out with him outside of the tearoom. It felt awkward. But she came to regret this decision as her final school year drew slowly to a close.

She didn't know what she was going to do after high school. She didn't want to go to college, but she wasn't mentally prepared to get a job right off the bat. Salvation came in the form of her friend on the train.

"I've got a secretary position open in Yokohama for my company," said Rinda, shrugging like it was no big deal. "Buy me a lunch and you're in."

Chihiro bought her big pork dumplings. It felt right.

Yokohama was far away for Chihiro, who had lived in the hilly countryside since she was ten. This transition meant no more lessons, no more Sokusui. She had to bite her lip for a second before telling him that she would only be having one more lesson with him.

He looked incredibly sad. "Oh," he sighed. "At least we have one more lesson together. When you come here next, I would like you to perform the full ceremony from beginning to end for me, and I would like you to do it in traditional dress. This is in lieu of a test, as I know how much you hate taking tests. Just think of this as a final goodbye, from you to me."

Her kimono was pink and covered in patterned flowers, sleeves long and meant for winter. She had never practised in full kimono before, had only imitated the motions of swiping back the sleeves and plucking accessories from her obi as she performed for Sokusui in her school uniform. She couldn't help but be nervous on the way to the teahouse on that final train ride.

She wanted to do well for him, wanted him to see her succeed. She wanted her dear friend to still care about her after she left for Yokohama. So she vowed to do her best.

Every move she made was meticulous, perfect, made whole by weeks and weeks of practice. At first she struggled with nervousness, battled with opening the door correctly, but she felt something deep in her heart that calmed her. The feeling that her friend was there, supporting her, and there was no need to be nervous.

When the actual ceremony started, when she began to cleanse the dishes, she fell into routine. Her eyes unfocused as she rubbed the bowl, three times, with a cloth, and she lapsed into that same autopilot she once found weeks ago. She performed every motion as he taught it to her, remembered every step, and began to enjoy the way her mind was absorbing what her body was doing with a calm sort of pleasantness.

It came time to actually serve him the tea. She took the cup, filled with a delicious green tea, and held it to him as she was taught. She would have done it just as perfect as the previous movement, if it weren't for the image that suddenly popped into her head.

She dreamed of someone holding a cup to Sokusui's lips. He was younger, so was she... Who was the other person? 

Chihiro stopped her movements. Sokusui stared at her like he were inspecting her through a microscope.

He was sick then, was ill, and it was the boiler man who was making him drink something. She was holding Sokusui. Was that his name? Her heart started throbbing. She set the cup down in the wrong place, trying to remember. Little things came to her, one by one, and she was trying to pick up the pieces and assemble them into something coherent.

The first full thing, the first _whole_ thing, that came to her was the feeling he used to give her.

She reached across the table. Her sleeves swung down and knocked the whisk out of its bowl, and it rolled against the ground with a loud wooden sound in the silent room. She pressed both hands to his cheeks.

"Haku?" she asked.

"Yes?"

She started to cry, although she was barely aware of it.

"I think I love you, Haku, did I love you? I think I did, is that weird? I was like, ten, and I- I don't know, all those feelings are coming back all of a sudden and it's really confusing and I just want to-"

There was that pure, wholesome, childish love in her chest, a kind of love she'd thought she'd forgotten, but there were other, newer, feelings too. New ones that came with age, new ones she could put a name to, new ones that wouldn't break any curses but would certainly make her very happy.

She was older and braver, and she could do this now. She kissed him.

It felt nice, destined, and he tasted like matcha.

She felt him shift, felt the crackle of the magic in the air, and the table between them slid to the side and hit the wall with a slam. He had room to hold her now, so he took her into his arms and held her close. He pulled away to touch their foreheads together.

"As far as your final test goes, you fail," he murmured. "Spectacularly."

"No fair, you said this wasn't a test," she whispered. He brushed her hair back behind her ear with his thumb. "Don't I get a pass for remembering you a little?"

"No," he said. He kissed her again. "Bribing the teacher is against the rules."

She laughed then, and buried her head against his shoulder.


End file.
